Eurasia Insight:
CANDIDATE SAAKASHVILI OFFERS OPPOSITION CABINET POSTS; OPPOSITION THREATENS HUNGER STRIKE
Molly Corso: 1/09/08

With just four days to go before official election results must be announced for Georgia’s January 5 presidential vote, former president Mikheil Saakashvili and the opposition are both making moves to secure public support in an increasingly polarized political atmosphere.

In a surprise broadcast late on the evening of January 8, Saakashvili vowed to include members of the opposition in his new cabinet. Although no official election results have yet been announced, the former president has been declared in leading vote-getter with 52.21 percent of the ballots, and is increasingly seen as the president-elect.

“[W]ith the opposition in mind, we have to reshuffle the current composition of the executive government and I believe that we should be much more all-inclusive and reach out to a broader circle of people for inclusion [into the cabinet],” he said in a specially scheduled airing of Rustavi-2’s Prime Time talk show.

“In my second term, cabinet posts will not be decided only on party affiliation,” Saakashvili told Prime Time hostess Inga Grigolia. “I’ve decided this because after my second presidential term I want to bequeath a democratic Georgia and not a party-based Georgia.”

Saakashvili’s bid for compromise – which he stressed was not an invitation for a coalition government – comes amid increasingly serious allegations from the opposition.

Opposition parties, including a nine-party coalition backing parliamentarian-candidate Levan Gachechiladze, are demanding a second round of voting. According to Georgian law, if any candidate does not receive 50 percent of the vote plus one during the first round, the race is decided by a follow-up vote within two weeks.

Central Election Commission Chairman Levan Tarkhnishvili on January 9 told reporters that preliminary figures put Gachechiladze ahead in Tbilisi, but in second place nationwide, with a little over 25 percent of the votes. Tarkhnishvili stated that ballot counting continues, but indicated that results from the remaining 30 precincts “won’t change the overall picture.”

On January 8, Gachechiladze supporters stormed the Central Election Commission in Tbilisi to charge that officials are falsifying election protocols to give the election to Saakashvili. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Saakashvili’s pledge to include the opposition in his potential second-term cabinet has done nothing to abate that anger.

During a short January 9 protest in front of Georgian Public Broadcasting, Gachechiladze told EurasiaNet that he “did not believe” Saakashvili’s promise.

Other opposition parties have also flatly refused to consider cooperation. Irina Pruidze, international spokesperson for the New Rights – a party earlier deemed by Saakashvili part of Georgia’s “constructive opposition” – told EurasiaNet that participating in a Saakashvili government at this point is out of the question.

“Our position is we don’t recognize these results. Therefore, we are not going to cooperate with an illegal president and government,” said Pruidze. The New Rights will only consider working with Saakashvili if he wins in a second-round race against Gachechiladze, she added.

Rumors about the final makeup of Saakashvili’s new government – pending official election results – have been circulating since the pre-election period. According to Petr Mamradze, head of the State Chancellery, Georgian law stipulates that a new government be in place 20 days after the president’s inauguration.

While nominally ministers are proposed by the prime minister, no candidate for a ministerial portfolio is decided without the president’s final agreement. On January 9, Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze confirmed reports that the cabinet will be radically restructured in the event of Saakashvili’s official victory.

“At this stage, I can only say that we will have several vice-premiers, instead of one, as presently,” he said at a televised government session, according to the news bulletin site Civil.ge. Although a president-elect has not yet been officially declared, Gurgenidze stated that “consultations are currently underway” about the new cabinet.

Political scientist Ghia Nodia commented that while Saakashvili’s initiative could be positive for Georgian politics in the future, there is little chance that it will placate the opposition now.

“Maybe one or two figures [from the opposition could] eventually [join the government] … broadening the pool of people from where the government is recruited,” Nodia said. “But I don’t think that will have an impact on the radical part of the opposition [now].”

Candidate Gachechiladze is now effectively symbolizing that part of the opposition for many Georgians. On January 8, he announced a hunger strike until the state-financed Georgian Public Broadcasting (GPB) gave his supporters and him live air time on television.

Calling the station “shameful,” Gachechiladze and other opposition leaders accused the station of “media terror” and attempting to keep “the truth” from the people. The nine opposition parties backing Gachechiladze contend that Georgia’s three main television companies – Georgian Public Broadcasting, Rustavi-2 and Mze – favor Saakashvili and do not broadcast their appeals to viewers.

“I am saying this for Saakashvili and [acting President Nino] Burjanadze to hear: You will have to kill me,” Gachechiladze told supporters in front of GPB headquarters on January 8. “I will not stop until you kill me.”

Contrary to his initial statements, though, Gachechiladze will not be taking part in the hunger strike. He encouraged protestors, though, to hold short rallies in front of Georgian Public Broadcasting every afternoon until the television station yields to their demands. “I cannot [participate] because I don’t want to become weak, physically weak,” he told supporters.

In a statement later on January 9, Gachechiladze’s brother, rap star Utsnobi (The Stranger), told reporters that protestors were demanding that “every candidate” have the opportunity to “express his thoughts and concerns” nationwide “and to tell the truth about what’s happening in Georgia.”

Georgian Public Broadcasting General Director Tamar Kintsurashvili met with coalition leaders on January 9, but would only guarantee broadcasting a pre-recorded message, “if this message does not, of course, contain unconstitutional appeals.”

The statement appeared to be a reference to earlier government accusations that Imedi Television, an opposition-friendly station founded by fellow presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili, had incited protestors during the November 7 unrest in Tbilisi in a bid to topple the government. Imedi suspended broadcasting on December 26. There has been no announced reopening date.

Editor’s Note: Molly Corso is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi.